Handheld computing devices, such as smart phones, possess increasing computing power. Such devices further include multiple sensors that can be used to capture data about the environment in which they are located. Indeed, many such devices have the ability to collect more data than they have the ability to store locally. Such captured data can be put to multiple uses.
However, the conscious capturing of data has the potential to be time consuming for a user. Furthermore, the conscious capturing of such data has the potential to impact what data is captured and what data is missed. Accordingly, there exists a need for facilitating such data capture in a way that at least partially removes user bias in capturing events, such as by capturing images automatically and in the background while the user operates the mobile device to perform other functions (i.e., opportunistic image capturing). There also exists a need for efficiently and autonomously identifying useful data from large amounts of data collected autonomously by a mobile device to avoid overloading the local storage capacity and/or external data transmission ability of the device.
According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, a method of assembling a data set for the creation of a 3D model of a space is provided. The method includes obtaining a plurality of images that have been passively captured by a mobile device; storing the plurality of images on the mobile device in mobile device storage; automatically electronically analyzing the stored images by the mobile device to assess at least one of quality, content, and redundancy; and automatically deleting one or more images from the mobile device storage responsive to the automatic electronic analysis to create a retained subset of the obtained plurality of images.
According to another embodiment of the present disclosure, a mobile device is provided including: a camera, a memory; and an image analyzer, the image analyzer operable to execute code. The code causes the image analyzer to: obtain a plurality of images captured by the camera and stored in the memory; automatically electronically analyze the stored images to assess at least one of quality, content, and redundancy; and automatically delete one or more images from the mobile device storage responsive to the automatic electronic analysis to create a retained subset of the obtained plurality of images.
According to yet another embodiment of the present disclosure, a non-transitory computer readable medium is provided having instructions thereon that when interpreted by a processor cause the processor to: obtain a plurality of images captured by a camera of a mobile device and stored in a memory of the mobile device; automatically electronically analyze the stored images to assess at least one of quality, content, and redundancy; and automatically delete one or more images from the mobile device storage responsive to the automatic electronic analysis to create a retained subset of the obtained plurality of images.